CONCERT REVIEW
ARTIST: Squeeze
Date: 9 September 2026
Supporting Act: ADAM ANT
VENUE: Capitol Theater
CITY: Sale Lake City, UT
Sitting in the backseat of my brother’s Camaro on the long, sun-bleached ride home from a river trip, I got my first real dose of Adam Ant. Until that afternoon he had been nothing more than the sharp-dressed oddball in the Honda Scooters commercial with Grace Jones—cool, sure, but distant. Then Strip started pouring out of the speakers. An eleven-year-old kid is not usually handed an album that opens with the cheerful observation that people get naked and then asks what comes next, but the rest of the record was pure voltage. “Puss ’N’ Boots” especially hit like a secret transmission: clever, sneering, melodic, and cooler than anything else in my small suburban world. The lyrics were sharp, the grooves were sly, and the whole thing felt like it belonged to a more dangerous, more stylish planet than the one I lived on.
A few months later, ritual Saturday evening in front of WDCA 20, Solid Gold came on and Stevie Wonder introduced Adam Ant doing “Vive Le Rock.” Marco Pirroni and the band built a guitar archway right there on the television stage. Adam strode through it like he owned the decade, launched into the song, and moved in ways that had nothing to do with Michael Jackson. The theatrics were ridiculous and perfect. Years later I learned that Jackson had lifted the French field-commander jacket image from Adam. That still feels like one of the purest proofs of how far ahead Ant was running in those early years—cool enough that the biggest star on the planet borrowed the look and somehow made it less interesting.
I met him properly in 1990 at a record-store signing appearance. I was sixteen, vibrating with nerves, and handed him my copy of Manners & Physique. He signed it. That small square of cardboard still lives in the collection like a relic. I saw him once more in the late ’90s. The performance was as unhinged as the old videos had promised, even if the stage clothes had calmed down from the full historical-pirate-Napoleonic fever dream of the early days. The songs still carried the same charge. I left that night thinking the catalog was immortal and the man delivering it still had the necessary spark.
Squeeze was a longer, more complicated courtship. In 1988 I almost bought a ticket when 10,000 Maniacs were listed as openers. I went down to the box office and found a notice that the Maniacs had canceled for the Salt Lake date because they were doing Saturday Night Live that week. I decided one band wasn’t worth the money and walked away. Two years later Squeeze came through again and absolutely demolished the room. I stood there realizing I had made a genuine mistake in 1988. After that night I understood exactly what they were capable of when everything locked in.
So when the announcement came that Adam Ant would be opening for Squeeze (with Haircut 100 also on the bill), it felt like a pure 1980s transmission aimed directly at people like me. I had seen Nick Heyward a couple of years earlier and knew he was still more than capable of stealing a night if given the chance. Then the day-of email arrived: Haircut 100 were out. Something about altitude sickness. In their place, Leon Tilbrook—Glenn’s son—would open the show. I was told he was a serious musician in his own right. That remained to be seen.
Leon walked out into the early evening light and for the first couple of minutes we could only hear him from the pit; the PA was still asleep. He stood there good-naturedly while the crew scrambled, then leaned into the mic and said he hadn’t been booked for stand-up and didn’t have that much material ready. Once the guitar was finally live he tore into his own songs with real enthusiasm. One of them, he explained, he had written at eleven years old about being in love with a girl at school and the quiet sadness of it never happening. His father had liked the music so much that he took the tune, wrote new lyrics, and put it on one of his solo records. Leon told the story with a mixture of pride and mild familial betrayal that made the whole room laugh. He danced all over the frets, clearly enjoying himself, and made every unfamiliar song sound worth hearing. He closed the set by saying, “This is one you might know,” and picked out the opening guitar line of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.” The entire venue recognized it within three notes and sang the rest with him. It was a perfect, generous hand-off. He would be back later in the evening with the family business.
Five minutes after Leon left the stage, two drummers appeared and sat down behind kits that were already miked and ready. One bass drum face read ADAM. The other read ANT. They started playing in tight unison. Adam Ant has always understood the power of two drummers when the material calls for it. One of the drummers was dressed in a full Versailles ballgown with Marie Antoinette hair; the other looked like he had simply shown up to work. They opened with “Dog Eat Dog” from Kings of the Wild Frontier, going all the way back to the beginning, and for a moment the years collapsed. The song still sounded feral. Then you started noticing the physical reality of the night.
Adam looked stiff. He was already winded after the first song. Salt Lake’s altitude is unforgiving if your body hasn’t adjusted, and it was clear he was fighting it. He thanked the crowd, then barked “Bang bang, you’re dead!” and the room answered without any prompting: “Did not! Did too!” They launched into “Vive Le Rock” and most of us had been waiting for that moment for years. The old dance moves were attempted more than they were executed. The body that once snapped through those angular, theatrical gestures was now negotiating with gravity and thin air. When I arrived at the venue the photo rules had been made very clear: no photographs of Adam Ant. I respected it. His manager apparently did not believe anyone would. He came at me hard during the set, repeatedly accusing me of shooting, demanding my name and credentials even after I told him multiple times I had not taken a single frame. By the fifth confrontation I told him he was simply being an asshole harassing a punter and asked him to go away. He reminded me one last time about the policy and finally left. The whole ugly little episode put a dent in the rest of the performance that never quite smoothed out.
Adam’s wardrobe was pure historical collage: straw gaucho hat, black bandanna, the old Civil War-style cross-belt jacket, a wide pirate leather belt with another Ant scarf tied to it, leather pants, and the signature knee-high boots. Half privateer, half Napoleonic ghost. It still looked right even if the man inside it was working harder than the clothes suggested. “Prince Charming” got people on their feet and dancing in place. “Desperate But Not Serious” still functioned because the audience knew every pause and filled them instinctively. But the voice was in trouble. It was frequently off-key. It was often buried in the mix. It was obvious he was fighting the monitors for most of the night. “Goody Two Shoes” and “Stand and Deliver” landed softer than they should have. The songs themselves remain bulletproof. The live instrument delivering them has simply changed. When the guitarist and bassist moved back to the drum risers and joined the two kits for “Kings of the Wild Frontier,” the sound became massive again and the song felt as timeless as it ever did. That moment worked. Large stretches of the set did not. I have loved Adam Ant’s music for decades. The records still hit. Seeing them delivered live in 2026 was a reminder that time is undefeated. You can honor the work completely and still admit that the voice could no longer keep up with the material for a full set. The charisma flickered. The catalog carried what it could. The night made the limitation impossible to ignore.
Ten minutes after Adam left the stage the drum risers were rolled off with impressive efficiency. A long platform was pushed into place carrying keyboards, guitar stands, a mandolin, a drum kit, and a series of small bar lamps glowing on velvet cloths beside each musician’s drink of choice. Squeeze walked out nine strong. They looked like the best house band the 1960s never quite managed to assemble—sharp zoot-suit variations, shiny threads, open-collar white shirts. Owen on bass wore baby blue. Danica Dora wore a tie. Everyone else looked like they had stepped out of a very stylish late-night residency. Glenn Tilbrook stepped to the microphone, said “Hello Salt Lake City,” and the band detonated “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell).” The sound was immediate, balanced, and locked. They played like people who had been living inside these songs for most of their lives and still found new corners to explore.
They took us through “Up the Junction,” “Another Nail in My Heart,” and “Is That Love” with the kind of precision that only comes from decades of muscle memory and genuine affection for the material. These songs are now forty-six years old. They do not sound like museum pieces. They sound like they are still being written in real time by people who understand exactly where the hooks live. Then the neon sign above the stage lit up with the word Trixies and they played the entire album front to back. If you have not spent time with that record, fix it. It is classic Squeeze DNA—irresistible melodies, sharp writing, rhythmic slyness—proving that the core ideas never needed Jools Holland or Paul Carrack to remain potent. Midway through one of the tracks Leon wandered over to his father’s pedalboard and began stomping on effects changes while both of them laughed. With nine people locked in that tightly there is room for joyful sabotage. The song never lost its footing. It simply grew a new texture for a few bars and then settled back into the pocket.
When I was shooting from stage right, Chris Difford, seventy-one years old, leaned forward with a full rock-star grin and gave me the look. Age is clearly just a number when the songs still fit and the band still means it. They finished the Trixies run with both parts of the title track, took a short breath, and Glenn announced they would play “some from the old catalog.” Instead of the saxophone that usually opens “Hourglass,” Chris played the line on guitar and the room dropped straight back into Babylon and On territory. That song owned Utah new-wave radio for a reason. The video still looks like it was directed by a caffeinated Salvador Dalí, and the chorus remains a loyalty test. If you never shouted along to it, you were never fully converted.
“Black Coffee in Bed” was enormous. After twenty-five-plus musicians have passed through the band over the decades, the current lineup still nailed every turn and every harmonic shift. “Cool for Cats” had Chris Difford on lead vocals; his voice has always sat in the same neighborhood as Carl Marsh from Shriekback, and tonight the resemblance felt especially strong. The whole venue moved with him. Glenn took “Tempted” and sang it with the authority of someone who has lived alongside that song long enough to make it his own even though it will forever be associated with Paul Carrack. Just when it seemed the set might be winding down they launched “Take Me I’m Yours” and turned it into a fifteen-minute celebration. Glenn introduced every member of the band while the music kept rolling. Each player took a solo. Owen grabbed an accordion and charged around the stage dancing from the ankles. When they got to Danica she delivered a sharp, sincere “Coat of Many Colors” that the room answered with real volume. I hope she heard how much it landed. The whole extended version felt loose and precise at the same time—the sound of a band that trusts itself completely. They hit the final downbeat one minute past Salt Lake’s weeknight curfew. That explained the near-absence of space between songs all night. They had twenty-one songs to deliver and no intention of leaving any of them behind.
Squeeze did not simply play Salt Lake City that night. They reminded everyone in the building why these songs lasted, why the writing still feels elastic, and how much pure fun remains available when the right people are driving the machine. The contrast with the earlier set was impossible to miss. One artist was fighting the limitations of time and altitude and monitors. The other was still discovering how much life the old material contained. Both catalogs deserve respect. Only one of them felt fully alive in the room.
If Squeeze roll through your town, put on the thin tie and the white socks and go. Dance like you know you shouldn’t. You will carry the night around with you for a long time afterward. Some performances settle into the memory as pleasant. This one settled in as necessary.
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